03 February, 2009

Erdogans "outburst"- a distraction for the global elite

It's a sign of the impotence of the global elite that news from the World Economic Forum this year was dominated by the ridiculous quarrel between the Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli president Shimon Peres.

It was just a show, of course, as Stratfor writes: "Turkey is effectively an ally of Israel. Given this alliance, the recent events in Gaza put Erdogan in a difficult position. The Turkish prime minister needed to show his opposition to Israel’s policies to his followers in Turkey’s moderate Islamist community without alarming Turkey’s military that he was moving to rupture relations with Israel." (By the way, I believe the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt would face the same problem if they ever came to power).

For the participants of the WEF this event probably came as a welcome distraction, as they are unable to come up with any credible answers to the global economic crisis, which according to the ILO is threatening the jobs of 50 million people, and may push 200 million workers into poverty. After all, those folks gathering at the WEF are the ones who created the conditions for this crisis in the first place, aren't they?

It's not surprising then that a number of Latin American presidents decided to abandon the WEF and instead go to the World Social Forum in Belem, Brazil. Generating some pathetic coverage in the international media of course; This meeting of more than 100.000 activists from around the world was reviewed by the AFP correspondent in this way: "Through it all, references to the global economic crisis were rife. But few realistic solutions were advanced."

Never mind that this journalist hardly did any serious attempt to examine the multitude of proposals and solutions that does exist at the WSF, chosing instead to refer dismissively to the anti-capitalist rhetoric of the leftist groups that participated. But of course it's very "realistic" to maintain a system that is threatening to throw 50 million people out of their jobs and push 200 million into poverty?